Re: MGA 2

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 15:59:02 +0100

On 23 Nov 2008, at 04:46, Jason Resch wrote:

>
>
> On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 8:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp.domain.name.hidden
> > wrote:
>
> 2008/11/23 Kory Heath <kory.domain.name.hidden>:
>
> > If we apply the Conway's Life rule to all the cells, it seems like
> the
> > creatures in the grid ought to be conscious. If we don't apply the
> > Life rule to any of the cells, but just pull the data from our
> > previously-created lookup table, it seems like the creatures in the
> > grid are not conscious. But if we apply the Life rule to half of the
> > cells and pull the other half from the lookup table, there will
> > (probably) be some creature in the grid who has half of the cells in
> > its brain being computed by the Life rule, and half being pulled
> from
> > the lookup table. What's the status of this creature's
> consciousness?
>
> Which leads again to the problem of partial zombies. What is your
> objection to saying that the looked up computation is also conscious?
> How would that be inconsistent with observation, or lead to logical
> contradiction?
>
>
> I would side with Kory that a looked up recording of conscious
> activity is not conscious.



I agree with you. The point here is just that MEC+MAT implies it.



> My argument being that static information has no implicit meaning
> because there are an infinite number of ways a bit string can be
> interpreted.


The point is, or will be, that as far as the string is complex enough
to part of some of history, and to bet on some continuation of that
history, she will not "feel" statics at all, from her point of view.



> However in a running program the values of the bits do have
> implicit meaning according to the rules of the state machine.


Relatively to you, and relatively to most common probable history/
computation that you share with that running program.



>
> What makes this weird is that in one respect our universe might be
> considered a 4-d recording, containing a record of computations
> performed by neurons and brains across one of its dimensions.
> Perhaps this is further evidence in support of Bruno's theory: mind
> cannot exist in a physical universe because it is just a recording
> of a computation, and only the actual computation itself can create
> consciousness.



I would say that all computations exist (already in "arihmetical
truth"), and "actual" is a "possible computation" as seen from inside".
Actuallity last as long as consistency. Consciousness differentiates
on the path, as seen in the path. This is more related to the first
steps than UDA than MGA.

If we abandon physical supervenience, we have to define a sufficiently
good notion of computational supervenience. But the UD and its
deployment gives not much choice.

We have to go from
consciousness at (dx,dt) = physical state at (dx, dt) (sup-
phys)
to
consciousness of (dx, dt) = computational state, (sup-comp)

And we have to explain the appearance of both consciousness at (dx,dt)
and physical state at (dx, dt) from sup-comp. With a naïve view on
computations, there are too much white rabbits, but computer science
and logic can be used to show this issue is far from simple.

Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Received on Sun Nov 23 2008 - 09:59:14 PST

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